THE SIGN READ, FLANAGAN’S PUB. Sydney headed straight for the door, knowing of no friendlier place in the world than a neighborhood bar named for someone Irish. Before leaving to meet with the Baltimore detective who’d agreed to provide Adam with some unofficial help, Adam had instructed her to hang tight. He’d wanted to do this on his own. He’d insisted. But she figured he also wanted to make sure he didn’t expose her to any potential danger. She guessed she could have objected, could have insisted she was a big girl who could take care of herself—but he knew that. In only two days, he’d managed to show her how much he respected her intelligence and quick thinking, which made her love him all the more. Damn. Sydney Colburn in love. Imagine that.
She knew she loved the man when she realized she understood Adam’s need to orchestrate this confrontation on his own, no matter how it contradicted her need to feel as if they were a team. And darn it if, during their consultation, Jillian hadn’t agreed with Adam that Sydney shouldn’t put herself at risk. Sydney’s only peace of mind came from the fact that Jillian had also strongly suggested that Adam finally contact the Tampa Police detective who’d originally investigated his case.
Thankfully, the man had not only remembered Adam, but he’d also agreed to interview Kyle immediately since their eavesdropped conversation led Adam to suspect the plans would soon be sold to a foreign company. The task of proving a theft with international players would be daunting. With that in mind, the detective also called an old contact on the Baltimore police force, one who owed him a favor. Adam was going in alone, but he had professionals charting and monitoring his every move.
That was the only reason she nixed the compulsion to do what one of her heroines might—secretly follow him. Luckily, Sydney accepted that those heroines usually ended up paying a big price for their arrogant haphazardness. The consequences always caused the character to grow in some meaningful way, but Sydney didn’t want to grow; she wanted a drink. She’d done a damn good bit of growing while making the simple decision to pursue Adam again. Now that she knew she wanted him for the long haul, she’d have to play the game his way. For now.
Fortunately, Adam hadn’t designated where he preferred she do her hanging, so Flanagan’s Pub it was. He had a cell phone and so did she. And Flanagan’s was only one block from Malcolm and Associates’ architectural offices. If he needed her, wanted her, whatever…she’d be close by, in a pub comfortably warm and inviting after the lunchtime rush.
As she had suspected, Flanagan’s was an old-time bar, from the pocked wood floors to the sticky booths and absence of anything remotely identifiable as trendy. No neon in this place. Any and all advertisements for beer and whiskey, the two staples, were carved and painted on wood or drawn on chalkboard. The polished bar top and brass fixtures gleamed beside clean glasses and frosty mugs. And since the curved-back barstools looked more inviting than some dark booth in the corner, Sydney ponied up at the bar. She smiled when the bartender, a voluptuous, six-foot-tall Amazon whose thick red hair made Sydney’s darker auburn shade look downright mousy, turned around and grinned right back. In a Jessica Rabbit T-shirt and tight jeans, the woman holding the dishrag immediately struck Sydney as a true kindred spirit. Bad and lovin’ it.
“Cool shirt,” Sydney complimented. She twisted in her seat, not entirely comfortable in the attire she’d chosen, an emerald-green, wraparound Versace with sheer hose and slim Vera Wang heels. If she couldn’t be useful, the least she could be was sexy. Adam hadn’t had an easy time abandoning her in their suite after he’d watched her dress. Particularly since she’d worn his favorite black thong panties. Served him right.
“You don’t look like the T-shirt type,” the bartender said, her gaze intensely doubtful.
Sydney laughed. “Believe me, sister, I don’t dress this way every day. And I certainly don’t do it for myself.”
The bartender arched a brow.
Sydney recanted. “Okay, so I do, a little. But I appreciate a soft pair of jeans and a snappy T-shirt as much as any girl, particularly one with Miss Jessica on it. I’d like to think I have a lot in common with her. Not bad, just drawn that way.”
The bartender grinned, poured Sydney a neat whiskey that she hadn’t ordered yet desperately appreciated, and slid it in front of her. “Ditto. My name’s Venus,” the server introduced. “Venus Messina.”
Sydney shook the woman’s proffered hand. “Sydney. Sydney Colburn.”
“Sydney Colburn…no kidding? The writer?”
Grinning, Sydney took a tentative sip of the alcohol, and finding the blend smooth, shot back a generous gulp. “One and the same.”
Venus leaned on the bar, her smile genuine, if not a little bit sad around the edges of her wine-colored lips. “That’s awesome. I’ve read your stuff. Very hot. Especially those big hottie knights of yours. Too bad more men can’t live up to your standard. And my favorite thing about your book—no wimpy heroines!”
Sydney sighed. Adam not only lived up to her heroic standards, he surpassed them. Since she set her books in historical periods, the men of her literary fantasies swung broadswords and rode stallions, wore chain mail and generally cursed the day her strong, capable, beautiful heroines burst into their lives. On the surface, her personal knight in shining armor had little in common with the alpha males who populated her stories. But Sydney knew the truth. Adam embodied every aspect of her perfect man. He always had.
Where her battle-hungry heroes wielded swords, Adam had his rapier wit, his keen intelligence. Where her fictional men thirsted for battle, Adam had salivated over success in his chosen field.
That thought stopped her comparison, tingeing her musings with sadness. If he didn’t get his plans back, if he didn’t figure out what had happened that awful night last year that had robbed him of his most cherished skill, where would that leave him?
She wanted him in her life no matter what, but she knew he wanted more. He’d told her so. He wanted his career back, his masterpiece. And he’d made no secret that until he’d accomplished this task, he would make no plans for the future. Leaving her…where? In love and waiting for the perfect man—and Sydney’s worst skill was patience.
“Men who meet my standard do exist,” Sydney finally responded, sipping her whiskey with care. “The trouble is finding them.”
“Finding men has never been a problem for me,” Venus noted. “Keeping them? That’s another story.”
“The good ones or the so-so ones?” Sydney asked. She’d had her share of so-so, by choice rather than any difficulty finding the higher quality version. She gravitated toward men who didn’t challenge her, didn’t do anything that might inspire her to reflect on the shallowness of her life. She hadn’t come to that conclusion until recently, but that didn’t make it any less true. A man of quality like Adam had slipped into her life entirely by accident.
Or perhaps Fate had lent a hand?
“Good or even so-so wouldn’t be bad. Unfortunately, the only ones I seem to manage to hang on to are the creeps who cost you jobs or empty your bank accounts. Not the green-eyed dreamboats with chestnut hair and the kind of wicked, sexy grin that ought to be illegal.”
Venus leaned on the bar, her gaze caught in the great far-off region known as fantasyland. Or perhaps she toyed with a memory? After just a few seconds, darkness fell over the bartender’s wistful gaze, like an intermission curtain during the best part of a play.
“Uh-oh,” Sydney said, finishing her whiskey.
“What?”
“You got it bad, sister.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Laughing, Sydney pushed her glass toward the bartender and nodded for a second round. “I am speaking for myself. I’ve got it badder than most. Hell, I am badder than most, and still I’m sitting here drinking with you, wondering if the next time my cell phone rings, the man in my life will be preparing me for that ultimate goodbye.”
Venus nodded while she flipped a dark bottle over Sydney’s glass, manipulating the stream of amber with a seasoned hand. “We bad girls have it tough, you know? Those goody two-shoes have saying ‘no’ down to an art form, blaming morals or past hurts! We say yes, because of those same morals and past hurts! We can’t seem to give up on the idea that the next handsome stud who comes along might erase what the last one did.”
“Handsome studs are a dime a dozen.”
That came from a low, sultry voice down the bar. Sydney turned in time to notice a striking brunette, dressed all in black despite the summer temperatures, nursing a beer. Wow. Sydney considered herself incredibly observant. Either she’d been utterly distracted by her situation with Adam and her conversation with Venus, or this chick knew how to blend into the woodwork.
Venus stood straight and started rubbing her dish towel over the bar, making her way closer to the Angelina Jolie look-alike in the corner. “Hell, girl. I almost forgot you were here. Come join us. Bad girls need to stick together.”
Wariness played over the woman’s face, but after a moment’s hesitation she picked up her drink and moved over next to Sydney.
Venus snorted. “Last club I belonged to was the Girl Scouts. I got kicked out when I was eleven.” As Sydney raised a questioning brow, Venus explained. “Summer camp. I got caught sneaking into the boys’ cabin to play Seven Minutes In Heaven. The troop leader came in just as I was heading into the closet with Tommy Callahan.” She shook her head and sighed at the memory. “He had the cutest dimples. And cool braces.”
Sydney nodded. She remembered a similar metal-mouthed lothario in her childhood.
“I never made it past Brownies,” the woman in black admitted. “I kept altering the uniform in a way that, well, didn’t exactly meet with the troop leader’s approval. But the boys liked it.” She winked. “Besides, brown isn’t my color.”
“Hell,” Sydney confessed, “my mother never let me forget I got tossed out of preschool for showing the boys my underwear.”
Venus snickered. “Hey, why was she complaining?”
“Yeah,” the brunette said with a knowing look at Venus. They finished the thought in unison. “At least you were wearing ’em.”
After a round of introductions that identified the woman as Nicole Bennett, Sydney ordered two more whiskeys, one for her new pal Nicole, and one for Venus, who’d decided it was high time she took a break.
“I guess we’ve been members of the bad girls club since birth, huh?” Venus asked.
Sydney nodded. Maybe not from birth, but close to it. “So what’s a bad girl to do?” she wondered aloud. She didn’t regret her lifestyle choices, nor did she wish she could undo any of her past. But what her bad-girl attitude had done was leave her totally unprepared for a real relationship. When she’d first set out to lure Adam back into her life, she’d thought caring about him and showing him how much she desired him would be enough to prove how her attitude had changed, how much she wanted to change. But he didn’t remember her, much less her former attitude. And in the past two days, she’d utilized all her powers, feminine or otherwise, to give him a true glimpse of the real Sydney. A resourceful, smart, sexy and caring woman who’d pull out all the stops in pursuit of her man. And yet she had absolutely no confidence that, either with his recovered plans or without them, Adam would want her in his life for the long haul.
Venus snapped to attention and made a humorous wisecrack when two straight-laced women entered and joined the suits at the table. After taking their order, she returned to their conversation. “So what’s a bad girl to do?” Venus repeated Sydney’s question, clear from her tone that she possessed no answer.
“Mend her ways?” Nicole volunteered, smirking.
“No way. Took me too long to realize that I like who I am,” Venus insisted.
Sydney nodded. “I agree. Good girls are highly overrated. Not that I know this from experience,” she clarified.
Nicole mulled that over, then threw back the whiskey like an old pro. “Maybe the reformation should depend on what kind of bad girl a woman has been?”
Venus’s beautifully sculpted eyebrows pulled together. “There’s more than one kind?”
Sydney glanced at Nicole. Oh, yeah. Bad girls came in as many varieties as nail polish and condoms. This one had a dark gleam in her gray eyes, as if her status as a bad girl stemmed from something more serious than taking lots of lovers or forgetting to apologize for outrageous behavior because you didn’t give a damn about what other people thought.
“Absolutely,” Sydney answered. “I think the key is to keep the part of the badness you enjoy—in my case, my addiction to incredible sex—and toss out the rest. Hey, we’re women of the new millennium. We can change anything about ourselves, anytime we like.”
As if to add a musical accompaniment to her grand decree, Sydney’s cell phone filled the quiet bar with a trilling rendition of George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone.” The women laughed, containing their chuckles while Sydney answered.
“Adam?”
“No, this is Detective Bransom of the Baltimore Police Department.”
Sydney’s heart stopped dead in her chest. Her face must have paled, because Venus grabbed her hand and Nicole leaned in close.
She somehow recovered her ability to speak. “Is Adam all right?”
“Yes, ma’am, as far as we know. But he wanted me to call you as soon as everything was in place. He said you’d probably be nearby.”
Sydney released a pent-up sigh as Venus and Nicole continued their conversation. “I’m around the corner at Flanagan’s.”
The detective chuckled. “Tell Joe to ice up a brew for me. I’m off duty today and will be stopping by as soon as your boyfriend gets what he needs.”
“You think he will?”
“Never know. He’s one determined guy. Don’t see how anyone could keep him from getting what he wants.”
“Yeah, I know the type.”
Intimately. As in, she was the same way. She promised to meet the detective, parked in his dark blue sedan across from the architectural firm’s offices, in ten minutes. She disconnected the call, then pulled her wallet out of her purse and tossed a hundred-dollar bill beside her drink, which she drained.
Venus stared at the face of Benjamin Franklin, before swiping the bill off the bar. “I’ll get your change.”
“Keep it. Use some to get Nicole as good and drunk as she wants to be. Use the rest to buy yourself something fun. I wish I could stick around, but duty calls.”
She slipped off the barstool and straightened her dress.
“Duty? That doesn’t sound like a concern for a bad girl,” Nicole joked, her tone wry.
Sydney gave that a long thought, wishing she had more time to chat and deconstruct Nicole’s psyche. The woman could make a great character for a book. Instead, she smiled. “Depends on what that duty entails, doesn’t it?”
Behind her, the door from the street opened, flashing bright light into the darkened bar. Sydney turned and, for an instant, experienced that familiar tingle she’d trained herself to feel whenever a handsome hunk was within flirting distance.
But despite the man’s tanned skin, chestnut hair, lose-yourself-in-them green eyes and incredibly kissable lips, the thrill quickly faded. Sydney couldn’t have been happier. No other guy was going to do it for her anymore, no matter how tall, dark or handsome. She waved one last time at Venus, who stared, mesmerized by the stud who’d entered. Then Sydney turned her attention to Nicole, who watched the bartender with sardonic amusement. With a feminine shimmy to set her rhythm in motion, Sydney walked out into the daylight.
She didn’t know what Adam wanted from their relationship, and she believed one hundred percent that he didn’t know, either. Too much of his future was invested, purposefully or accidentally, in the situation with his missing plans. She hadn’t pressed him too hard, but something in her gut told her the time had come for a serious conversation. By this evening, he’d know more about the plans and have a clearer direction for his life.
And if he didn’t, Sydney decided she’d just have to draw the guy a map. She wanted him. Now, and for the long run. She loved him. Foreign as the concept might have sounded to her two days ago, she faced that realization with the same bottom-line attitude that had brought her this far in life. Far enough to finally see what she really wanted was Adam. And, damn it, what Sydney Colburn wanted, Sydney Colburn got.
ADAM BLEW OUT a deep breath, clutched the brass handles on the office doors and propelled himself toward his future. Just before entering, he’d dialed Detective Bransom on his cell phone, made sure the man had found Sydney, then tossed the active phone in his suit pocket without disconnecting. His cell wasn’t one of Jillian’s nifty listening devices, but the phone wasn’t illegal, either. There was no law against accidentally leaving your cell phone on, just as there was no law against a friend of a friend happening to overhear something that went on in the background. Bransom assured him this loophole might not hold up in court, but, at this point, Adam didn’t give a damn.
Malcolm and Associates took up the two lower floors of an office building they’d designed and built over twenty years ago. Despite two decades, the glass gleamed, the chrome shined and the leather furniture reflected the wealth, success and good taste that Marcus Malcolm prized. Adam thought of the man as his mentor. He’d taken Adam on as an unpaid intern during college, then offered him a dream job the minute he’d earned his degree.
Though Adam had had a supportive father back home, Marcus had pinch-hit the role during the time Adam had spent in Maryland. Back in Florida, Frank Brody had taught his son about honesty, integrity and how to build a sturdy structure with your own two hands. In Maryland, Marcus Malcolm had taught him how to incorporate honesty and integrity into the business of designing sturdy structures with your mind and imagination. Adam, young and hungry to splash into the architectural world in a big way, had eaten up everything Malcolm had said to him.
That Malcolm could be involved in the theft made no sense to Adam. Attempted murder was too much to contemplate. But he didn’t have much of a choice but to investigate, not if he intended to reclaim at least part of the life he’d lost thanks to the accident.
“May I help you?”
The pretty receptionist smiled, her hair a bouncy brunette, no recognition in her blue eyes. Adam figured he might run into people who knew him from the past, but this college-age woman wasn’t one of them.
“I’m an old friend of Mr. Malcolm. I was wondering if I could sneak on past and surprise him.”
Despite her young, naive smile, she instantly eyed him with suspicion. “I don’t think so. But if you give me your name, I could call him and see if he’s free.”
At least he knew now that Marcus was in the building and not off supervising a job site or traveling, allowing his son, Steven, to run the show. While Adam and Steven had been approximately the same age, the two had never had much in common. Adam wouldn’t go so far as to have considered Steven a rival—from day one, Adam had understood that Steven would inherit his father’s business and Adam would go on to start his own, closer to home in Florida. He glanced over at the oil portrait hanging behind the reception desk featuring Steven sitting in a stately leather chair, his father to his side, Malcolm’s hand possessively on his shoulder. Adam now wondered, though, if what he had considered a strictly professional relationship between two young architects with divergent goals could have been a rivalry.
A rivalry that had led to theft? Attempted murder? Why? Why would the heir to a veritable empire steal from him? What could Steven have had to gain except money, which he already had boatloads of? Steven’s involvement made no more sense than Malcolm’s, and yet the call Kyle had placed had routed through this office. Through the same phone system the young receptionist was about to use now.
Adam thought fast. He didn’t want Marcus to know he was there ahead of time, certain the element of surprise was still his best bet to gauge an honest response. But he also hadn’t wanted to confront Marcus somewhere outside the building, like at his car or his home. If the plans were in his possession, they’d be here. In the office.
“How about you call Linda? She’s still around, right? Tell her an old friend is here, but that I want to surprise Marcus. She’ll play along.”
He leaned one hand on the receptionist’s desk, his body and tone amplifying the casual confidence he wanted to portray. For added emphasis, he turned on one of those charming smiles that always worked so well with Renée.
The girl batted her eyelashes.
Bingo.
“Have a seat. I’ll see if Linda’s at her desk.”
Adam saved his triumphant smile for after he’d turned his back and headed over toward the couch. He’d taken several risks. First, he had no idea if Linda was still Marcus’s secretary, but had decided to take a guess. Linda was Marcus’s wife’s sister, and according to him, the best secretary in the business. Even ten years ago, she’d operated as his right hand. He couldn’t imagine the two ever professionally parting ways under normal circumstances.
Now that he knew she was still around, he had a second risk to face. He trusted that if Marcus had indeed involved himself in, or even orchestrated, the attack against Adam, he wouldn’t have involved Linda. Marcus wasn’t an idiot and while Adam had trouble imagining him party to a crime, he had more difficulty swallowing that Marcus would have made Linda an accessory.
The door to the inner office opened, and Linda came out, her eyes widening with glee the moment she saw him. She held her arms outstretched and squealed.
“Oh, my Lord! I can’t believe you’re here!”
Adam grinned, then joined her and let her wrap her arms around him in a hug.
“It’s great to see you, Linda.”
She pulled back, but kept her grip on his shoulders. “Great to see me? Who cares? I didn’t nearly die on some dark road.” She turned him around, then hugged him one more time.
Adam felt a lump form in his throat. No way was she faking this response. She was honestly happy and surprised to see him.
“Where have you been? Marcus talks about you all the time, you know. We’re finally building that town center down in Asheville—the one you worked on. Gosh, who can believe it’s been ten years?”
Adam did remember the retro-Colonial structure since the building had been one of his first solo projects after joining the firm. He knew that years often passed between the design of a building and the actual construction, particularly when a city government was involved, but ten years seemed a lifetime away, even with five years missing in between.
“Not me. You don’t look a day older.”
She slapped him on the shoulder. “Flirt! You always were the charmer. I can’t wait until Marcus sees you. He’s going to be so surprised.”
I’ll bet.
She tucked her arm in his and led him back into the offices, chattering away uncharacteristically. He remembered Linda as serious, always concentrating on one project or another. Then again, she hadn’t been dour or anything. She’d been quick to laugh and foil his attempts at teasing. As she wound them over to a private elevator and pressed the up button, Adam accepted that her surprise and excitement over seeing him again was genuine.
But the minute they stepped onto the plush carpet outside the suite of offices on the second floor, he knew not everyone at Malcolm and Associates harbored the same nostalgic happiness. As he strode up and met Steven Malcolm eye-to-eye, his former colleague paled, then sneered.
“Brody? What the hell are you doing here?”